» The Gooner World

Here's the introductory post -

Performance -> Illusionary and Deceptive
A former argument/discussion about Robbie Keane brought to my attention anassumption that I had thought of earlier. Keane's spot-kick at the Emirates was deemed to be a poor one and he was also said to have utterly scuffed theoppurtunity to score, which could have further resulted in a victory. Worst case scenario(for us ofcourse) , if Alumunia would have wrongly predicted his chosen direction, it would be all so different.

Newspapers would be full of one liners such as 'Ice-Man Keane puts Spurs through', 'Robbie's Spot Kick Makes gunners Groggy', so on and so forth. The point I would quote here is that how many of us, or even journalists and football experts for thatmatter of fact, would judge a penality as being poor even if it finds the back of the net. Or the other way round if the kick is good, yet fails to reach the back of the net. So arent we all fickle minded in one way or another?

Now coming to a similar view point, How important are stats for adjuging the successof a player? Is playing a role statistically, (as in scoring goals and making assists) theouly route to footballing recognition? I ask this ardently, as many a time Gallas put up stalwart performances. But none got him the credit as much as the Goals in thematches against United,Chelsea and Wigan did. He was instantaneously titled as'Captain fantastic'.

Ultimately, Do stats lure us into percieving football diffrently than how it actually is?

Some reactions -

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wen the team as a whole performs well, its difficult to giv credit to individual performances....

on the othr hand, solo efforts that are successful..(fr eg. a penalty scored by striker/saved by keeper , a goal scored with/without an assist...) are immediately noticable and hence given creditits

like wen a single player plays a vital role in the outcome he is immediately noticedbut wen a player co-operates well with other players and does his job perfectly it isnt noticable as a brilliant performance to most people....

even then, strikers and midfielders always get much more attention than defenders (atleast Goalkeepers' saves are noticed, but still not as well applauded as a goalscorer...)
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You made some good points.I think few people would term a penalty as 'bad' even if it hit the back of the net. Technically, the best penalty is the one which would find the back of the net regardless of whether the GK guessed the correct way or not. On the other hand, a penalty can be 'good' even if it doesn't find the net, that just counts as a 'good' save.

As far as the stat thing goes, it is difficult to quantify a defender's performance in terms of statistics and numbers (it is possible, though not very tangible, unlike a midfielder being judged based on his assists/goals).

And it is possible for players to have good games at a stretch without the stats reflecting so, however I think the law of averages catches up in the long run. What I am saying is, a player may play well and be vital to a team for maybe 10 games or so, without that reflecting upon his statistics (maybe someone like Rosicky for eg). However, for a midfielder to consistently give good performances without any assists/goals, for say 5-6 years, that's just too much of a co-incidence (again, refer Rosicky's stats for the Czech national team)
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